Thom - his life thus far

Saturday, January 30, 2010

As usual, it's been a while since my previous post....but, meh, I don't care. I can hear you say 'why has it been so long?' or 'what have you been up to?' Well I'll get to that when I'm good and ready...and... I'm ready now. So...

Where to start... Oh yes, in my last post I mentioned that I was in a production of Edward II by Marlowe presented by the Kent Theatre Company. Well, just to let you all know, it went really well and everyone who came to see it really enjoyed it... apparently... they could've been lying to make us feel better... no... they did like it. We toured around Kent and got reviewed and stuff. Um... I played my roles well, I got wedgied as the the bishop of Canterbury, beaten up as a guard, delivered my Messenger monologue pretty well, and acted like a bit of a prick as Herald, so all in all it went down well.

Then what happened with me? ... um... Oh yeah! Last year I was a joint honors student at my university, studying Drama and Film, buuuuut, I found film really boring, I mean, I don't want to slate it, but OH MY GOD! I'm sure the single honors for film is really interesting because you get to do practical stuff, but for joint, all you do is theory, half the course, booo! SO, I applied to change to single honors for drama, I got it, and I don't regret it, not one bit. The course is a lot more fun, the people are really cool, I've made a lot of cool new friends. So I want to thank all the drama guys for making me feel welcome... cheers.

Right, moving on.... what else have I done... um, recently I've been trying to get more experience in front of the camera so as to add to my acting CV and making it easier in the future, so I've been auditioning for as many films as I can, student films that is. Last term I auditioned for roughly 4 or 5 films; they're quite hard to find so you have to know where to look, but yeah, I auditioned for about 4 or 5, got into 3 of them, 2 of them fell through so at the moment I'm in 1, but hey, that's better than nothing. Through working on this film, I've learned a lot about how films are made, what goes on behind the camera and the difficulties in actually filming. Btw, I want to make it clear that this isn't my first film I've been in; I was in two other student films in my first year and have taken part in various video sketches with friends back in Oxford. But anyway, it's only recently that filming actually started and in order to get the shots, we had to start filming early, starting at 6.30am... and let me tell you, IT'S COLD AT THAT TIME! Trying to act cool when instead we're freezing our arses off is hard... but still do-able, let's just hope it'll be worth it in the end. Every now and then I see glimpses of the potential this film has, but sometimes, when it's going slowly, I'm not too sure, but I'm remaining optimistic. The directors are really cool, the crew are cool and the two other actors are cool too, so it should be ALL-right.

Right, last thing to tell you, I also auditioned for one of the drama society's (T24) plays last term, and that was 'Bouncers' by John Godber. And somehow, I got in! WAY! It's a cool play, really funny, it's basically set around four bouncers illustrating a night out in 90's urban nightlife, in which these four bouncers play a variety of characters, such as a group of lads, girly girls, posh... toffs?, and bouncers as well. It's kinda supposed to be a social commentary on how society views the different types of clubbers and people who live for the night. Anyway, like I said, the play's really funny, the rest of the cast, i.e. the three other bouncers, are all really cool

and very talented and there was obvious stiff competition for all the roles. The play is going to

be very entertaining so ... I'm about to do an advert btw ... people should come along, it's

hilarious and fun for everyone, maybe not children, but teens, students, adults... pensioners?

Don't know bout them, but still, it's an awesome play, at one point, my character has to 'act' out a swedish porno with another bouncer and... well... according to my director and production

manager, it's hilarious ... even though it is a little humiliating, but hey, that's part of acting... hmmm. But, yeah. It's gonna be great. On the right is the 'poster', in which we four bouncers are acting as the girly girls, hence the handbags.

That's about all I'm writing for now, I'll try and update my blog, instead of waiting for ages, even though there probably isn't anyone reading this... if you're out there say helooooo.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Right, it's been a long time since my last blog, but that's because I either didn't have anything to write or I wanted to let it all pile up and write it in one post, I don't know, what do you think?

Right.....where to begin? Um...The summer just went, and I did quite a bit.

Firstly, I was job hunting and that failed, all the jobs were taken by BLADY students, it's not fair. So, I ended up painting my house for my parents, it took a while but it looks a lot better, and I got a fair bit of money for that. So, I can now put on my CV Decorating as i decorated my house.

Secondly, I went to my first funeral in the summer, it was very sad, I didn't know the person that well, but my mum did and my grandparents did and she was my godfathers mum, so I felt I had to be there to support my family.

Soon after that, I went to Centre Parks with my mum, big sis and lil bro, and had a quite a fun time, did my first ever paintball session, was immense, hurt though but still immense.

What else...I went up north with my family, stayed in a cottage Alnmouth, it was about two minutes from the beach so it was really nice. We travelled up to Edinburgh whilst staying at Alnmouth, got to see the Fringe festival again for the fifth year running, and it's still awesome, I love it up there. I saw some pretty good theatre. A company which people should see is Gecko, they did and show called The Overcoat and they were FRICKIN' AWESOME, I loved 'em. I also managed to see my friend's show Borges and I by Idlemotion. They were good, but......they were no Gecko, but they were still good. Idlemotion is a company people will soon hear about more and more.

I've also, now, moved into my new house in Canterbury, Kent. It's really nice, and in a good location, 5 minutes from town and 10 minutes from Uni, so it's pretty good. When I first moved in though, it had some really tacky wallpaper in the hallway, stairway and landing. That's a picture of my house and the wallpaper above, but luckily, Sean, my housemate managed to get it painted. It's now magnolia and it looks ten times better, it gets more light and it feels more homely. So, cheers Sean mate. A thing that bothered my about the house though, was being greeted by bills and also having to sort out the internet. It's sorted now obviously, but before, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had to get a line rental from BT and get broadband from O2 (O2 is cheaper if you are and O2 customer). It's sounds easy, but believe me, it wasn't. I spent a lot of time on the phone with BT and O2 trying to get it sorted and there was a lot of waiting. I had no internet for 2 weeks, I had to go to my mates house to use it. But everything's cool now, just need to pay the bills

OH! Nearly forgot, before the summer, I auditioned for Edward II by Christopher Marlowe and being directed by Kent Theatre Company. I got it! WAY! And have a few parts in the play. From the look of how the rehearsals are going it looks like it's gonna be pretty good. Pretty good indeed.

Anywho, that's about it so far, I think. If I remember anything else, I'll let you know.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

This is my first blog post, so sit back and enjoy a little about myself

I have now been going to university for 8 months, that's including the christmas holiday and easter holiday, and I am loving it here.....except for the essays, but no one likes writing essays....except for maybe english students. I am at The University of Kent studying Drama and Film studies. I love the drama side of the course...but...the film, not so much. I mean, yes it's interesting but if you do joint honours here you only do half the course, so we end up doing just theory, which is boring. So, I applied to change course and as of next year I will be doing just Drama, Mdrama and theatre studies... the 'M' stands for masters, so at the end of the four year course I should have a Masters, from then on I'll shall be known as 'MASTER SHORT!' ... I like the ring of that.

Ok, back to my life thus far. Im in a really cool house in the Parkwood area of the university, it's like a little village, nice and peaceful. I have 5 cool housemates, all really nice and I have really cool neighbors as well. The campus is really pleasant and serene, with lots of places to go and really cool social places, like Mungos, Woodys, KBar, Origins and many others. Canterbury is also really nice; a beautiful place with a old, historic Cathedral, which I have yet to go into, but I will soon. The city has many, many pubs in, however, in terms of clubbing, not that much. I mean yeah, it's got a few, but I suppose it could do with a few more, Im sure there are other social areas that I have yet to find, but I've got another three years to find them. Anywho, there is one really nice place here which I really like, and that is the view of the City from the top of the hill near Keynes bus stop. It's simply amazing, I'll post a picture one day, I haven't got one now, but I'll get one soon.

There's loads more to say, but I want to wrap it up, so I'll tell you about one more thing. I was in a really cool play last term, House of Illusion written and directed by Kate Lennon and Heather Ward, influenced by Punchdrunk Theatre Company and the plays The Balcony and Night at the Circus. The play was of a promenade style. Those of you who are unaware of what promenade style is, it is basically where there is no set stage or seating area, the entire building or area is the stage, and the audience walk around the area and see what they want to see whilst the action is being acted out around them. It is really cool style, I love it! The only drawback is that there is no backstage so the actors are constantly acting without anywhere to stop and take a breather. But nonetheless, I loved it! And I wish I could do theatre like that all the time. The character I played was Mr Sugar, in Nights at the Circus he is only a small role, however, in this play, each part is a main role because as I said, we're constantly "onstage". Even if there isn't a scene to act in, we were still acting and improvising in our areas. It is hard to explain what the main plot of the play was as each character had their own story to perform. My character was a client at the Brothel who paid for sex and raped a prostitute when he got angry. He also had a fetish for wings and was mesmerized by Fevvers' wings (Fevvers was another character within the play who was the star attraction due to having real wings on her back). The play does not end nicely as my character, Mr Sugar wins by killing Fevvers in order to get the wings. So....yeah....sorry.